This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
News

Briefs

Published: July 19, 2012

  • UBF elects Letro board chairman

    The UB Foundation Inc. Board of Trustees has elected prominent Buffalo attorney and UB Law School graduate Francis M. Letro as its new chairman.

    Letro, who has served on the UBF board since 2007, replaces Angelo M. Fatta, who recently was named to the SUNY Board of Trustees. Letro’s one-year term runs through June 30, 2013.

    A native of Olean, Letro received his undergraduate degree from The George Washington University and his law degree from UB in 1979.

    A sole practitioner with offices in Buffalo, Letro has held leadership positions in numerous professional organizations on the national, state, and local levels, and is a frequent lecturer for national, state and local bar associations.

    He is a longtime member of the Law School’s Dean’s Advisory Council and now serves as the group’s vice chair.

    The Law School’s first-floor working courtroom is named in Letro’s honor in recognition of a $1 million gift in 2002 from him and his wife, Cindy Abbott Letro.

    At their June 28 board session, UBF trustees also approved the nominations of several new and returning trustees.

    New trustees elected to three-year terms that run through June 30, 2015, are Ravinder K. Bansal, chairman and CEO, AirSep Corp.; Michael W. Cropp, president and CEO, Independent Health; Beverly Foit-Albert, founder and president, Foit-Albert Associates architectural firm; Anthony B. Martino, retired partner of the Buffalo CPA firm Lumsden & McCormick LLP; and Margaret W. Wong, founder of the Cleveland-based immigration law firm Margaret W. Wong & Associates.

    New UBF directors are Ross B. Kenzie, a manager at Auction Ventures LLC, and Ronald M. Schreiber, partner, SoftBank Capital.

    UBF trustees also elected three new nonvoting, ex-officio trustees who represent UB. They are Charles F. Zukoski, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs; Nancy L. Wells, vice president for development and alumni relations; and Laura E. Hubbard, vice president for finance and administration.

  • Talal to head gastroenterology

    Andrew H. Talal, associate professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College, has been named chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

    Talal, who also has been appointed UB professor of medicine, will join UB in September when Thomas Mahl, a clinical professor of medicine who had served as interim chief, steps down. The division previously had been led by Michael Sitrin, professor of medicine.

    Talal has an international reputation for his clinical and translational work in hepatology, the branch of medicine that deals with the liver, gallbladder, biliary tree and pancreas, as well as management of these disorders. He has been recognized as an authority on viral hepatitis in HIV-infected individuals. A board-certified gastroenterologist and hepatologist, he is a physician-scientist in the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C, a consortium between Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

    Talal currently is conducting research, funded by such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, on HCV evaluation and treatment among patients in drug treatment programs and risk factors for AIDS among IV drug users.

    He earned his MD from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and received his MPH from the University of North Carolina. He completed his medical residency at the University of Iowa, and research and clinical fellowships in gastroenterology at the University of North Carolina.